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Plan to add police wins more city support (in Milwaukee) Change in funding may ease approval for 40 new officers : Source: By LARRY SANDLER, journalsentinel.com, June 19, 2006 Aldermen gave a boost Monday to efforts to add 40 more officers to the Milwaukee Police Department. Recent Coverage * 6/10/06: Task force backs civilian officer plan * 6/9/06: City committee seeks more police * 6/3/06: Officials respond to crime wave * 6/1/06: More police for high-crime areas top anti-crime efforts A second Common Council committee backed the move, with a change that will improve its chances of winning passage on the council floor today, despite the opposition of council President Willie Hines Jr. Since a rash of 28 shootings on Memorial Day weekend, public attention has focused on police staffing, which has been short by up to 200 officers for several years. The council's Finance and Personnel Committee voted 3-1 to support a resolution by Ald. Tony Zielinski to spend $750,000 to add 20 more recruits to each of the two remaining police academy classes scheduled this year. That measure previously won the support of the council's Public Safety Committee. But in a key change from the version backed by that committee, the measure endorsed by the finance committee would use half of $1.5 million that had been set aside for other police purposes. That means the proposal could be approved by a simple majority - eight aldermen. The original version would have taken the money from the city's contingency fund, a move that requires 12 votes on the 15-member council. To date, seven aldermen have either voted for the measure in committee or have signed on as a co-sponsor. Four others have voted against it in committee, said they would oppose it or lean toward opposing it. Zielinski and John Balcerzak, president of the Milwaukee Police Association, said more officers are needed to reduce overtime, which they warned could lead to burnout and dangerous errors. But Ald. Michael Murphy, the finance committee chairman, pointed to figures that showed overtime is not directly tied to the vacancy rate. Ald. Joe Davis Sr., the lone "no" vote on the finance committee, raised questions about the impact of the added police spending on both this year's budget and in future years, when the officers' full salaries and benefits would reach $2.3 million a year. The $1.5 million account tapped for the additional officers was reserved for either police overtime or for starting a "community service officer" program of civilian officers to handle low-level police tasks. But a recent report on the community service officer concept indicated that the program couldn't start this year even if it were approved, and Mayor Tom Barrett has pushed to use the money for current police needs. Nonetheless, Hines and Ald. Terry Witkowski told Journal Sentinel editors and writers that city officials need to adopt new approaches to police service instead of adding more officers. As the leading proponents of the community service officer idea, they pointed to figures showing that even with its vacancies, Milwaukee has more active-duty officers per 100,000 residents than 13 larger cities and that it spends more per capita on police than do eight similar-sized cities. Sworn officers aren't needed to write reports about traffic crashes, burglaries and other incidents reported after they are no longer in progress, or to book and guard suspects in the city lockup, Witkowski said. Community service officers could assume those duties and free sworn officers for fighting crime, he and Hines said. Hines and Witkowski said they also would be open to bringing back retired officers on a part-time basis. Police Chief Nannette Hegerty has said she could use the part-timers to clear a backlog of background investigations on police recruits. But Witkowski and Hines said it should be possible to use those retired officers or police service specialists - former officers who work in the police motor pool - for other duties as well. As for the $1.5 million, Hines said it should be used for efforts to take guns off the streets or for overtime on specific assignments, instead of adding officers or funding overtime in general. Plans are under way for an audit of how police overtime money is spent and for an overall study of police staffing, but results of those won't be available in time for 2007 budget deliberations this fall, Hines and Murphy said. Gov. Jim Doyle has pledged $700,000 for police overtime and additional summer jobs and has asked the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee for another $1 million for police. But it is not clear whether the legislative committee will act on that request when it meets Wednesday, city officials said. category:Planks_from_elsewhere